Then and now

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I was recently reading an article that spoke about how the matriarchal system prevalent among the upper caste communities in Kerala (excepting Brahmins who were decidedly patriarchal) evolved and then disappeared for various reasons – one of them being the introduction of prudishness by the British. A woman could even choose whom she shared her body with and there was no questioning her choice. We are talking of a few hundred years ago but the matriarchal system was in vogue in some form or the other as late as perhaps 70 years ago or so.

Looking around at the women in Kerala and the family I married into, I wondered how in the space of hardly a few decades, we went from women holding all the power to women scurrying around like rats working both in the office and at home. Of course many women work in Kerala – we are the most literate state in the country after all but they are expected to do everything at home and they don’t have the final say in what happens to their money. I know my mother-in-law didn’t. I know my mother never had her own money but my father put everything he owned in her name – I never knew why. Perhaps he knew he would be the one to pass away early.

I grew up hearing stories of how my great-grandmother ruled her household, how she would sleep with an iron ‘kathiyaalu’ or cleaver underneath her pillow to scare away potential burglars. Her husband was a Namboothiri would sit where he was told to and who visited only for obvious reasons. He had no say in how the children were brought up. He had no say in how the house was run. Typically, only the eldest male would inherit the house in a Namboothiri family. The younger ones would marry Nair women whose children would then inherit her property thereby freeing everyone from battling over property and assets. My grandmother too was wedded to a Namboothiri scholar who was lackadaisical in his interest in the family. After five children and terrible struggles she dragged him to court and divorced him. It was hard for her to provide for five mouths by herself but she worked hard and did everything she could. At 90, she still tells us that no matter what, a woman should have her own career track – if she has no job, she would be at the mercy of some man or the other. My mother was far more domestic but I wish now that she had followed her mother’s advice. She might have had years of independence instead of the self-styled cocoon that she entombed herself in at 53 after my father passed away.

I too have never been financially independent except for the few years I worked. I couldn’t leave my kids to others because my son was not that easy to take care of – he had loads of energy and inexplicable (at that time) tantrums and he wouldn’t sleep. It meant an almost zombie-like existence and a lonely, friendless life during the best years of my youth but I have come a long way since then. Writing has been my savior. The ability to discover some river of strength deep down, in the face of my own negativity and the lack of understanding that came at me from the people I expected to help me the most, is what kept me going. Now I have no time to say I don’t earn – I still don’t of course but that is a choice. I work at my school for empowering autism. I run to the office started by my husband and keep an eye on things. I run my home and take care of my children and cook endless meals. The home and children are totally my responsibility since my husband is away three weeks out of every four. The one week he is here, we do everything together. And I don’t mind the work, because anything is better than feeling helpless.

It saddens me to see the way women have been reduced to nothing more than glorified maids in the part of Kerala that I am familiar with. They are now made to marry some random stranger, to reproduce on cue , to never revel in their sexuality and to function in the service of the menfolk be it their husbands or sons. Such a fall from stardom. I feel suffocated whenever I visit Kerala despite my attachments. In Bangalore, in spite of the pollution, I breathe freer.

At the end of it all, I am my grandmother’s granddaughter – the one who knows she can fight it alone if need be but will not buckle down in the face of lesser minds - the one who is not willing to give up on her dreams. Perhaps I should’ve been born in the time when women ruled. That would certainly have been something to write of ;)